Journal article
Native Riparian Plant Species Dominate the Soil Seedbank of In-channel Geomorphic Features of a Regulated River
Marjorie Pereira, Joe Greet, Christopher S Jones
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT | SPRINGER | Published : 2021
Abstract
Flow regulation impacts on riparian vegetation composition, often increasing the prevalence of exotic and terrestrial plant species. Environmental flows may benefit native riparian vegetation via the promotion of plant recruitment from riparian soil seedbanks, but this is dependent on an intact native seedbank. Thus, we assessed the composition of the soil seedbank of different riverine geomorphic features to determine its potential response to environmental flows. Soil seedbank samples were taken from channel bars, benches and floodplains at six sites along the Campaspe River, Australia, a heavily regulated river that receives environmental flows. These geomorphic features represent a gradi..
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Funding Acknowledgements
We thank Scott McKendrick, Jack Davis and Lyndsey Vivian for their help with seedling identification and counting, Rowan Berry and Brett Hough for their help in the nursery, and Paul Chantler for his support throughout. We would like to thank the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research of the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, and The University of Melbourne for funding this research. Lastly, but not least, we would like to thank our three anonymous reviewers and the Editor in Chief of Environmental Management for their valuable and detailed feedback on this manuscript.